Happy (late) Birthday to me!

I had a great birthday. Usually I have too high of expectations and I get dissapointed. This time I just enjoyed every moment. I got a wonderful breakfast with my family and had a pretty relaxing and yet productive morning. I've been trying to get so many projects done before the big day. That day being Christmas of course. I've widdled my list from 18 to about 7. Not because I've finished that many, but because I simply took things off my list that I knew I wouldn't finish. Like making a huge quilt for Katelyn. Yea, right. Maybe for her birthday in June. I finally finished Owens quilt, this is it in the picture. On the Owen note, he popped about 4 teeth last week. Crazy!

Anyways, back to my birthday. I ditched the fam and went to the Bezanson farmers market. I had some good friends out there, so I had a great time visiting and spending lots of money. I'm sad that more people didn't go, it was amazing. One lady was selling beautiful crocheted snowflakes for only 2$. They were incredible. Next year people, go. I got home with just enough time to feed Owen before my hubbie whisked me away for a lovely date. He wrote me a love letter. I love him. So much. It was such a nice day. So that's it. My birthday post, yipee!

Christmas Countdown

It's on, the count. My sibs are coming next week! Can't wait!!!! The project countdown is also on. I have 16 left, although that's looking good from the 18 yesterday. I've made serious progress on the Christmas quilt this week. I've been babysitting a friends girl this week so my time has been a lot more kid oriented than usual. My poor kids are used to playing in the sewing room A LOT. Anyhoo, here's some pictures. I had been waiting for a least one comment before I posted again. Thanks Alissa for finally humoring me.




Heres Owen trying to fight off his cousin David. He's two months younger and already crawling circles around Owen. I've been trying to teach him all week. He's in no hurry though, and come to think of it neither am I.
This is our wonderfully fake Christmas tree. My sister will be so disappointed when she gets here. I've considered switching it to a real one, but who wants to undecorate and start all over again?
My dear sweet friends came to visit a couple weeks ago. I got really sick while they were here, boo. They took such good care of me. We managed to make this gingerbread house with Katelyn while Laura was still here. I globbed on the icing and let her put on whatever for decorations. Aren't they pretty? Fun times. I love Christmas it's the best! Oh and did I mention that tomorrow is my birthday? Lots of comments will make me happy:-)

Road Trip!

We've been back for a week and I just haven't caught up with life yet. We drove to Salmon Arm for our friends wedding in the 8th. Katelyn and her friend Sydney got to be flower girls. It was pretty cute. The dresses turned out so sweet, and us crazy moms decided to make necklaces to go with them. We're a little obsessed you might say. I wish I had taken a better picture of Katelyn and Owen together, I loved his outfit! The guys in the wedding party wore sweater vests, so I couldn't resist when I saw this outfit. In between the ceremony and reception we happened upon a little bowling alley. Just to prove that as parents we can still be spontaneous we decided to check it out and knock down a few pins. It was pretty fun.


From Salmon Arm we drove down to Oregon to visit Matthews family. It's always a good time and so beautiful down there. I just love the trees so much. Matthew has three brothers and their families, and his parents down there. I can't say enough about it, it was just such a good trip. We love you guys and miss you! Katelyn had so much fun playing with all of her cousins. They both traveled really well. We stayed with Matthew's aunt in Seattle on the way home and then drove all the way from there. I couldn't believe how well they did all that way. I think I freaked out more than they did. Blogger isn't really easy when it comes to labeling pictures and having the words actually line up where they're supposed to. But here's a brief description of the pictures: 1. Judy serenading Owen 2. Katelyn got to go to Kindergarten and ate ice cream, what a treat (grammie Judy teaches Kindergarten) 3. Rosemarie and Katelyn playing piano, they played so nicely the whole time, Katelyn loves her so much 4. The two year olds on the swings together and Clara in the background 5. Judy the monkey

Lentil Soup

We're on holidays visiting Matthews family, so no pictures today. But here's a soup recipe because it's cold and rainy down here. Matthews mom always makes this soup, it's so homey and yummy, and healthy to boot. Hee he, to boot, I'm such a geek. Over my long 4 years of marriage and cooking I've changed the recipe a bit, and I've never written it down, which means it's never been the same twice. Here's my first attempt at preserving it.
Lentil Soup
2 cups of beef broth (or vegetable if you're doing vegan)
1 carrot, chopped
1/2 c lentils (doesn't matter what kind, I use a mix of two different kinds)
1/2 an onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic
1 stalk of celery, chopped

Put the above ingredients in a frying pan with some salt, pepper, and thyme. Let these sweat until the lentils and veggies are cooked. This is just to get some flavor and thickness to the finished soup. Once this is cooked blend it up either in the blender or with an immersible blender (which I love and use all the time)

8 cups of the broth of your choice
chopped veggies: cabbage, carrots, celery, onions, garlic, and whatever else you have on hand that you think would work
fryed ground beef with seasoning (omit if you're doing vegan)
your choice of herbs and spices. I use thyme, basil, oregano, a titch of red pepper flakes, salt and pepper.
1 cup or so of lentils
a splash of balsamic vinegar

throw this last part in a pot, add the pureed mix from your frying pan. This thickens up the broth and adds flavor to the lentils. Simmer until everything is tender. Enjoy!

I didn't make this as I was writing it so the amounts might be way off. I eyeball things a lot and never use recipes. Even if I have a recipe I never follow the directions precisely. Where's the fun in that?
Anyways, we're doing a lot of driving the next week. I love road trips. I got Owens quilt done so I'm just doing the hand sewing on the binding in the car. My machine is horrible and the quilting is the worst. But it'll do I guess. Pictures to come! I also started reading a book, it's called "The Condition" it's good so far. An easy read, and perfect for a road trip.
The kiddies are doing great and loving hanging out with the cousins. Oh and remember the flower girl dress I was talking about? Yup, she did it, she walked down the aisle all dolled up. I can't wait to get home and put pictures up. My little sweetie boy is on my lap wanting some food. He's precious. Even when he's screaming until 11 at night. I don't know if it's teeth or tummy, but he's one mad little man the last few nights. Talk to you later. Make some soup!

Trick or Treat!?!

Before and After. I bought this ugly cheap dress today and jazzed it up a bit. We had these wings laying around so I guess she was a fairy princess. I sewed these flowers on to cover up the picture on the front (they came from a Hawaiian lei, which was also laying around). I had to bring it up a lot too, so made it a bit puffy on the bottom. Very cute, we had lots of fun. This is her little loot bag I made. Not very big, we had to keep emptying it into the stroller (which I had Owen in hoping he would fall asleep, HA yeah right). This is our third year living on this block, it's amazing how much it's changed. The first year we literally only had three people come. This year I ran out of candy before 7:30!!! Happy Halloween everyone!

The Season

Eggnog, Christmas music, sleeping in. Here we come Christmas yipee!! I need to pace myself though, last year I was almost sick of Christmas festivities come January 1st. Almost. So this year I'm only allowing this nonsense on the weekends, maybe until my birthday (Dec. 13th, take note and buy gifts). The other five days a week it's regular cream in the coffee and no Christmas music. Although who would say no to sleeping in if the option was there? Today my kids slept 'till nine!!! How did I get that lucky? It's crazy I know.
I have allowed myself to do some Christmas prep, mostly just 'cause I'm crazy and obsessed. I started making a Christmas quilt. Here's a picture of the squares cut out. Just a bunch of cheap stuff from Fabricland. This was mainly for practice, but I'm starting to really like it. We started watching the Lost series on DVD, so now I'll have a cozy quilt to cuddle up with (and our awesome fake fireplace yay) Here's the kids and hubbie in front of the "fire" one blissful sleep-in morning. Here's a picture of the house we're framing next door to us. This is what Matthew does in real life, when he's not here feeding the baby or listening to Christmas music. He also started playing soccer again this year, exciting. I haven't gone to a game yet, they always start late, I'll have to just suck it up and get a babysitter someday.




Here's some quick pictures of the stupid baby blankie I finally conquered. I just couldn't figure out what to do with this, took it out a million times, then finally figured it out as I was falling asleep one day. And of course it was so simple. So here's Owens, and an girlie one I made for my friends baby. I think this will be the standard baby gift from now on. Sorry to ruin the surprise Linds;-)


Well I'm feeling pretty nauseous for some reason, so I'm gonna go eat some real food. Speaking of which that's another Christmas season thing I love, food, right now it's mainly citrus fruit. We don't eat it until nowish, and then it's such a treat. Today it's grapefruit, yum! I'm trying to clean and organize today and take a break from sewing. It's hard.

Grandpa's Plaids and other things

This post is a tribute to finished projects. Finishing things is a very big deal for me and must be celebrated. I never finish things. I haven't celebrated the finished bassinet here yet (I have on facebook in Owens baby album). So here's my little cuties with the finished product. The condensed story of this bed is this: While pregnant with Katelyn 3 or so years ago I saw this picture of this 400$ bed. Naturally I really wanted it, and naturally I wanted to make it instead of fork over the money. My wonderful husband did his part right away, cut out the wood and had it all ready. I bought the fabric and got together with my wonderful sewing friend Marilyn, but got stuck so I didn't finish it. Then when I was pregnant with Owen the plan was revived. It wasn't actually completely finished until after he was born. But now here it is and I'm hoping he can use it for as long as possible.

Ok, another finished project: Corryn's quilt. I think I told you about this a couple posts ago. So here it is all finished, I gave it to her last weekend. Considering I'm not a huge fan of different plaids this turned out pretty good. I like the pattern, it's an Amy Butler one. I saw the picture of this quilt but again, didn't want to actually buy the book with the pattern in it, so I just drew it up on graph paper. I think I'm always going to do that, it works well. Is that breaching any copy right laws? I hope not.


So now I'm starting new stuff:-) Sydney and Katelyn get to be flower girls next month and Shari and I are making the dresses. So that's one project. It's a simple pattern but apparently I'm a sewing reject and totally can't figure it out. I'm learning a lot, mostly patience. Don't want to give anything away on that though, so I'll post pictures after the wedding.
The other project is Owens quilt. I feel like I'm really doing stuff I like now. I got all this fabric on Etsy. I'm waiting for this fabric to fill in these blank spots in the picture. Hopefully that link up there worked so you can look at the picture if you so care to. Here's his quilt so far, can't wait to start sewing it together!! This poor boy plays on my childhood strawberry shortcake quilt, he needs something a little more boyish.


So with that, I'm outta here, I have some sewing to do. Needless to say my house is feeling very neglected lately. In fact the laundry got so bad Matthew was driven to do a few loads last night. Good method for getting out of laundry eh? But of course I have time to spruce up our fake fire place:-) It's not actually a fake fireplace. It's gas with fake logs. It's pretty cheesy to me, but still nice to have. I just like real logs that actually burn. Someday, someday.....
In other news I've had a headache for three days, I think it's a pinched nerve or something. That and the fact that there was only half a cup of coffee left by the time I got to it today, and it was cold. Boo. It's a good thing I have a sweet cuddly girl on my lap right now, otherwise I might be grumpy or something.

Some Things I Care About:

supporting local growers
healthy eating
chemical free cleaning
the three R's
being a responsible citizen
sharing what we have in order to build relationships (ex: lawnmower, why do we ALL have one???)
reteaching society what's right (from body image to money and everywhere in between)
supporting small businesses (boo Walmart)
growing food for ourselves
voting and being informed
basically just thinking about others more than ourselves. These are things that I think about more and more lately, and I'm sure I could add to the list if I sat here longer. As Christians especially we have a responsibility. Thats all for today, just me thinking out loud. More fun stuff soon. I started Owens quilt yay!

Sweet Life

Life is in one of those places right now. One of those sweet places that I hope everyone has once in awhile. Every thing clicks and feels right and I'm thankful for the smallest moments. I love finding myself here. I can't say it's any one thing, it's just the combination of everything going on right now.



I found eggnog at Costco last night. I'll be drinking my coffee with eggnog until January, yay! This is the coffee mug I got when I went to see my sis this summer. In the background of this pic is the sugar bowl from my childhood. Felicia wasn't impressed that I got it, just wait until it's time to hash out the piano. These are the projects I've been finishing. I took that quilting class a couple weeks ago. I did this baby quilt for that class. So this isn't a pattern I'd normally use, but I learned a lot by doing it. I really don't like the batting I used for either of these. It doesn't drape at all. The purple plaid one has a story behind it. My grandma gave me left over fabric from making shirts for grandpa. Corryn, my cousin, is sentimental and was Grandpas favorite, in a good way. So I made this quilt for her and put the solids in to try to tone down the plaids a bit. I'm giving it to her this weekend, so hopefully she doesn't read my blog;-) And in the plaid quilt picture you can see my awesome old school sewing machine. It's done many miles for me the past couple weeks. It's my best friends these days. I'm so excited to get these out of my way so I can start on Owens quilt. I decided on a pattern for his, but then changed my mind. I'll post on his quilt in the next couple days. He's awake and mad so I gotta cut this short.

Cuties and Recent Projects

In my last post I mentioned I would take a day off the computer. I did only take one day, even though my lack of attention to my blog makes it seem I've been away longer. All that crafty blog surfing payed off. I have been so inspired lately, and yes definitely found the pedal to my sewing machine. We have become good friends that machine and I. I've taken it apart and cleaned it and learned all of it's tweaks. I took a quilting class last week, I'll post pictures later of the little project I did. I've been dreaming up all kinds of projects. My favorite site lately is Purl Bee which also has some good links here Another good one is this blog with a lot of nice quilts. For someone who hasn't even finished a quilt yet, I have a pretty long list of quilts to make. I'm starting with two, one for each kid. I got my fabric from Etsy this week to get started.





This is what I've gotten so far (for fabric). I found this adorable and super easy pattern for a skirt. It took less than an hour to make it. I didn't actually like this green stuff for the quilt it was supposed to go with, so a skirt it is:-) Oh, and she is wearing a diaper again this week, yay! I'm a potty training failure:-) I just really needed to step back from this whole endeavor. The annoying thing is, she was doing SO well. I would say she was completely potty trained for two weeks. Then on Monday she started... well you know. Lets just say it was messy and I was very very angry. So now I like her again and we'll try this again in a few weeks.




Owens just such a little squishy lovey baby. I just can't get enough of this kid. I love this stage so much, it's the best. Minus the mashed food. Although he does look pretty cute with carrot mash all over him when he's grinning from ear to ear. Big gummy orange smiles. No teeth yet, yay! No crawling either, and not too much rolling across the room or anything. I'm in no hurry for him to grow up, it's going to fast as it is. He was six months last week!
I'm loving autumn so much this year. I've been snuggling up with candles and.... I'd like to say a book, but just the computer these days. I made stew. I'm planning quilts. I bought snow pants. Those are my winter preparations.


This is our view of the pond now. We moved around the corner from our old house, but we can still see it out our side windows. We don't back on to houses here either and that's really nice. Matthew and my Dad are framing a house next door which we will most likely move into once it's done. So if anyone wants to be our neighbours in a few months just buy our house:-) I'm so freaking excited about this new house (the one being framed). More on this later. My hubbie is messing with my candles, I must intervene.

Taking a Break

That's right, I'm going to take a break. I've been wasting a lot of time on the computer lately. I just browse wonderfully crafty websites to get ideas and inspiration. So tomorrow I'm not going on the computer at all. Who knows what I'll do with all the time. Maybe I'll even find the pedal to my sewing machine! If I don't find it tomorrow I'm probably going to buy a new machine. I just want a really basic inexpensive one. Any suggestions would be great. I just figure when I pay for a new pedal and getting this old thing serviced, I'm almost spending the amount of a new machine anyways.





I realized that Owen was getting gypped in the picture department. Here's one when he's just waking up, and another where he's thinking "what the heck is that silver thing, and where my momma?" And I stripped Dean and Annettes crab apple tree to make crab apple jelly, yum! I got this scale from my Grandma, I love it!
Our "LTG" groups started tonight. I'm pretty excited to just go deep with these girls and get to know God in a real way. I feel like this fall is a new beginning, a fresh start for our church group. Things have been pretty quiet and relaxed this summer. We are all excited to just get going, to get out there and love people.

Oh and my hubby bought me flowers today. I like him. A lot.

Real Life

I can take criticism. Someone pointed out that by reading my blog people will hate me. Ok, fine. That someone read aloud certain sentences in a VERY mocking tone. So I thought I would devote this post to them and others that may feel the same way. I never wanted to portray myself as perfect, if people came to that conclusion well then hey. Haa ha. No seriously though, I'm normal and to prove it here's my house on a typical day.







Laundry everywhere. A blanket for a window covering. Dishes, diapers, and dirt. Yup, that's my life. So don't fall into the trap of believing that I, or others, are amazing 'n all that. Even though I canned a lot doesn't mean I'm super wife/mom. Quite the contrary actually. My house, kids, and hubby were a little neglected during these last two weeks.
In other news, the potty training is going MUCH better than last week. No poop on the floor, yay! Also, my cousin and family are moving here today from B.C. I'm SO excited about this (and not just because they have cute kids). Owen is loving his baby mash, and slept through the night again last night, yay! Lot's of 'yay's' today. Oh perhaps the most exciting 'yay' of all: I got fabric in the mail today!! I'm making a quilt for Katelyn. I have to take a class 'cause I have no clue what I'm doing and I'm not a perfectionist when it comes to sewing. I'm still waiting for a bit more fabric, some inspiration, and a pattern. Then I'll get started. We'll see if this is a project that actually gets finished:-)




P.S. Does anyone know how to unexport my blog to facebook? Right now every time I update here it gets sent to facebook, but I want to undo that and can't figure out how. Stupid Facebook.